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Untitled Article
the desires , and aversions must depend on the vividness of the primary sensation ; in other words , that the warmth of the moral part of human nature , must vary with the degree of original sensibility .
In this explanation , however , it is evident that no reason is involved , accounting for the relative prominence of the several moral faculties ; it is only their absolute strength , the amount of fervour and enthusiasm which is explained . But we think that the theory may be fairly carried further , and provides an adequate cause for several intellectual peculiarities . The sensations which
form the elements of all knowledge ^ are received either simultaneously or successively ; when several are received simultaneously , as the smell , the taste , the colour , the form , &c . of a fruit , their association together constitutes our idea of an object ; when received successively , their association makes up the idea of an event . Anything then which favours the associations of
synchronous ideas , will tend to produce a knowledge of objects , a perception of qualities ; while anything which favours association in the successive order , will tend to produce a knowledge of events , of the order of occurrences , and of the connexion of cause and effect ; in other words , in the one case a perceptive mind , with a discriminative feeling of the pleasurable and painful properties of
things ^ a sense of the grand and the beautiful , will be the result ; in the other , a mind attentive to the movements and phenomena , a ratiocinative and philosophic intellect . Now it is an acknowledged principle , that all sensations experienced during the presence of any vivid impression , become strongly associated with it , and with each other ; and does it not follow , that the synchronous
feelings of a sensitive constitution , ( i . e . the one which has vivid impressions ) will be more intimately blended than in a differently formed mind ? If this suggestion has any foundation in truth , it leads to an inference not unimportant ; that where nature has endowed an individual with great original susceptibility , he will
probably be distinguished by fondness for natural history , a relish for the beautiful and great , and moral enthusiasm ; where there is but a mediocrity of sensibility , a love of science , of abstract truth , with a deficiency of taste and of fervour ^ is likely to be the result .
May not many of l ) r . Priestley ' s peculiar characteristics be traced to such an original mediocrity of sensibility ?—his want of memory to a deficient vividness in the associated ideas ?—his versatility and rapidity of association , to the absence of any strong concentrative emotion tending to arrest his thoughts at any point
in a train , and to forbid them to pass on ?—the direction of his analogical power towards philosophical invention , rather than poetical imagination , to his want of perception of the beautiful ?—his evenness of temper and spirits to a freedom from that alternate action and reaction to which susceptible minds are liable i
Untitled Article
840 On the Life , Character , and Writings of Dr . Priestley .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 240, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/24/
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